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50 Golden Greats

The Shadows - 50 Golden Greats Audio CD

A fair review of the The Shadows "50 Golden Greats" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Shadows reviews here, or go back to the The Shadows tabs.

Band: The Shadows
Title: 50 Golden Greats
Rating:

Release Date: 2000-08-07
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Apache 2: Man of Mystery 3: Stranger 4: F.B.I. 5: Midnight 6: Frightened City 7: Kon-Tiki 8: Savage 9: Shadoogie 10: Wonderful Land 11: Sleepwalk 12: Guitar Tango 13: Boys 14: Dance On 15: Foot Tapper 16: Atlantis 17: Shindig 18: Geronimo 19: Theme for Young Lovers 20: Perfidia 21: Mustang 22: Cosy 23: Nivram 24: Little "B" 25: Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt 26: Rhythm and Greens 27: Genie with the Light Brown Lamp 28: Mary Anne 29: Stingray 30: Don't Make My Baby Blue 31: War Lord 32: Thunderbirds Theme 33: I Met a Girl 34: Place in the Sun 35: Dreams I Dream 36: Maroc 7 37: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue 38: Something 39: Let Me Be the One 40: Don't Cry for Me Argentina 41: Theme from The Deer Hunter 42: Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto de Aranjuez 43: Riders in the Sky 44: God Only Knows 45: Going Home 46: Albatross 47: Nights in White Satin 48: Whiter Shade of Pale 49: Imagine/Woman 50: Memory

The Shadows 50 Golden Greats
It had all the songs that I had hoped for & then some. This is an excellent cd for anyone who enjoys The Shadows style of music. I have enjoyed the many hours I have passed listening to this wonderful cd.

An Institution Outside of the United States
When the Shadows weren't backing Cliff Richard they were making hits of their own. I grew up in Britain with the Shadows' music and kind of took them for granted. Apache, Wonderful Land and Foot Tapper were played on the radio often enough that it wasn't a crime that I didn't have a record player to actually play the records. The Shadows were on television quite a bit as well. Then in the late seventies the 20 Golden Greats album was issued, the Shadows were on tour. I bought the album played it every day at college. The day I didn't play it, I got complaints. Then I went to see the Shadows in concert. The audience included people of all ages, there was an electric buzz of excitement, we were not disappointed. Hank and the boys put on a wonderful show, with lots of fun and humor, with music made in heaven. After the concert, somebody said to me "You really liked Foot Tapper didn't you?" I wondered why the comment, and was told that I was standing on the seat cheering like a goal had been scored in a soccer game. Frankly, I hadn't realized that I had got so excited, and still have the memory of perhaps the most enjoyable and joyful concert I have ever had the privilege of attending.

I give the album four stars because the covered tracks in the second disc are not the same as the original music that had Britain rocking along before and after the Beatles arrived. As it was, the Beatles were at Shadows concerts as a learning experience. However, in the second disc, as pointed out in another review, the Shadows version of "Going Home" by Mark Knopfler is absolutely sublime. If you buy this album you won't regret it, especially as this music played all over the world, and by all accounts has influenced many household names, is seldom heard in the United States. .

Disc One great, Disk two.....so-so....
They are all here, Apache, Man of Mystery, Midnight, Kon-tiki etc. This is a two cd set, with the 1st cd containing early tunes of the Shadows. . . Good surf stuff and is The Shadows at their best.

The second cd are mostly remakes of standards, (Riders in the Sky, God only knows, Imagine etc. . . ). I really like their version of "Albatross". The 2nd cd is "ok", but I got the "Shadows are go!" cd and really, all their best original work is on that one cd. They play the cuts well here, but really. . . some of it almost sounds like elevator musak.

I would not have bought this cd set, knowing that all my favorites of the Shadows were already here from my initial purchase. But there are 50 tunes here and it rounds out the collection.

Joe.

But there's so much more!
A great compilation. . but there's so much more! (that's
why I only gave four stars). Both the original Shadows' stuff and their masterful covers never fail to please. These CDs are a teriffic addition to any collection. . . even if you've heard most of them before.

(By the way, the cover of Mark Knopfler's marvellous 'Going Home' is in and of itself worth the price of the album. Enjoy. ).

All the classic instrumentals
There were several great instrumental artists around. In the early sixties, instrumental hits were a regular feature of the pop charts in Britain and America. America had Duane Eddy, Floyd Cramer, B Bumble and the Stingers and the Ventures, to name a few. Britain had the Shadows and the Tornados. While the Tornados were very successful at the time, most notably with Telstar, the Shadows remained successful for the rest of the century.

The Shadows were also Cliff Richard's backing band and played on most of his hits in the fifties and sixties. Like Cliff, they made little impact in America but any Americans who enjoy the Ventures and Duane Eddy ought to give the Shadows a listen.

This compilation has all their big UK instrumental hits of the sixties and seventies including Apache, Man of mystery, FBI, Wonderful land, Dance on, Foot tapper and Don't cry for me Argentina. They also experimenting by doing a few vocal tracks and some of those are included here, among them being Mary Anne (a UK top ten hit), Don't make my blue, I met a girl, Dreams I dream and Let me be the one (their 1975 Eurovision song - like so many other Brits, they came second). The vocal tracks are good but it is their instrumental skills on which their reputation is built.

Most of their big hits came early in their career. In the eighties and nineties, they gave up worrying about hits and contented themselves with making albums of cover versions. A few covers selected from these albums round off this excellent collection. Among them is Albatross, an early Fleetwood Mac tune that always sounded very like a Shadows track, so it was an obvious tune for them to cover.

The Shadows, like most pop groups, has had its share of line-up changes. Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch , two of the original members, remained with the group throughout. The other two original members, Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, left early on, They teamed up as a duo and had some UK hits of their own including Diamonds. Of the other members that came and went, John Farrar is perhaps the most famous. He joined in 1970 but eventually had to leave because of other commitments - he became producer and songwriter for Olivia Newton John.

If you enjoy guitar instrumental music of the sixties, you'll love the Shadows. This compilation contains all the essentials, though a lot of Shadows music is available on CD for those who wish to explore further.

You can see a complete list of all The Shadows discography, or go back to the The Shadows tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.